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Bill Thompson has this article running on the BBC discussing a possible future for Microsoft in the open-source community. He proposes Microsoft creating a separate operating system that is based on freely distributed GNU/Linux code but is compatible with not only Linux but Windows and OS X applications as well. This could be done, according to him, in about a year if they devoted many of their resources to the development and improvement of the Linux code to a scope that would make the Microsoft version so advanced that other Linux distributions could not catch up and effectively make all other Linux versions obsolete by the time the code hit the market. He says that this could allow Microsoft to control the project and deliver updates and patches to its consumers for free in a much speedier amount of time because of all the resources and experience available at Microsoft compared to the classic open-source project. Meanwhile Microsoft slowly phases out its Windows division in favor of this new open-source OS. Microsoft would provide the OS for free but keep many of its other applications closed-source like its Office products. Before long those already running alternatives to Microsoft, like the classic-Linux, would be forced to switch to Microsoft’s version because they become outdated and incompatible with the new Microsoft controlled OS market.

“The net's core architecture moves over too, with Micrix on the DNS root servers, and even Google migrates the Googleplex's servers, simply because the support environment is better and patches are rolled out more efficiently and with fewer errors.” - Bill Thompson

The idea in theory seems like it could work and would make Microsoft the dominant player on nearly all computers and markets in the world effectively killing the competition again. If they distributed the OS in the right way I can see how they could effectively run a massive uber monopoly but avoid any and all legal actions because they wouldn’t control the OS since its freely open to the public to change in anyway they wanted to. Microsoft would control the world one PC at a time.

But we need to realize something, the chances of something like this happening are slim and the amount of changes that would need to be taken in the ideology of management are enormous. The thought that runs rampant through Microsoft that open-source is “evil” would have to be dropped and the transition from an closed-source to open-source development model for its largest division could either destroy the company or turn it around and be the company of choice, not necessity, once again. This change could set Microsoft back on a course that would reclaim their title as the “good guys” of technology that they lost so many years ago. They would still use the same “innovation” model that they have used for years that gave them he nickname of the “borg” because they would take GNU/Linux and assimilate its technology into their own product. I guess the future of technology at this point is a mystery, which development model will win? Will closed-source development reclaim its crown as the model of choice, will the open-source model take over becoming the defacto standard of the industry, or will some other model take flight possibly a hybrid of the two? Only time will tell.

Microsoft released the first Beta of its next-generation operating system called Windows Vista, codename Longhorn. This Beta primarily focuses on the basics of the OS and it will be used to test the basic core of the OS for security, dependability, and management. Many of the features useful for end-users are missing from the Beta and are expected to be seen in Beta2, which will be released either by the end of this year or the beginning of next. Beta2 will be more widely available and released to the public while Beta1 is for developers and IT professionals and is released by invite only. More information about this Beta will be available soon and I will update you on what I learn.

This is the first Beta release of the OS and follows on the heels of the naming of the product just last week symbolizing a fresh new start for the OS that has been suffering from problems of its long development time and loss of interest in the community, this is also the earliest Microsoft has ever released the final name of a product further evidence that Microsoft wants to leave behind the "failures" associated with the Longhorn name.

As was reported last night, it's official the next version of Microsoft's Windows operating system will be called Windows Vista. Below is Microsoft's announcement video and the explanation of the name from the Windows Vista site

---Bringing clarity to your world.Today we live in a world of more information, more ways to communicate, more things to do. There is more you can do and even more you can discover.Every day, millions of people around the globe rely on their Windows PC to manage their increasingly digital lives. While familiar tools for managing digital information are powerful, today's world requires more.In today's digital world, you want the PC to adapt to you, so you can cut through the clutter and focus on what's important to you.

Introducing Windows VistaÂIt enables a new level of confidence in your PC and in your ability to get the most out of it.It introduces clear ways to organize and use information the way you want to use it.It seamlessly connects you to information, people, and devices that help you get the most out of life.

Paul Thurrott of WindowsIT Pro is reporting that the next version of Windows codenamed Longhorn will be called Windows Vista. He says the announcement will come on Friday July 22, 2005, in a press brief that will arrive around 9:00AM. Lets look into the name to see why they would have picked that name.

Vista: Noun {C}1 - A view, especially a splendid view from a high position.2 - A possible future action or event that you can imagine.

Well it seems fitting since Longhorn’s Aero UI will provide a “beautiful” interface and will launch Windows into the future, and hopefully for Microsoft in a future that they catch up to the competition. The name sounds more like something Apple would choose than Microsoft. It doesn’t seem to fit in with the previous naming scheme that they have chosen to use since their inception years ago. I say that until I think about the name a little more and realize it follows the same scheme as Windows XP did. If you didn’t know the XP was short for eXPerience, which is what Microsoft used in the creation of that version to provide the most stable and usable version to date. Now with Vista they are showing how they have taken what they started with XP and are taking that to splendid new heights as far as you can imagine. Hopefully the name will go well with consumers, right now I’m undecided whether I like it or not. Time will tell. I will have to read over the press brief and see why Microsoft has chosen that name and maybe that will help make up my mind.

A quick and unedited "dump" of my thoughts on our return to flight, written at 12:30AM so please forgive me. (I need to do this stuff earlier!)

Today we return to flight. We as a people have been grounded since the dawn of time, stuck on this rock we call Earth, and in just the past century for the first time we were able to leave and enter a world like no other before. It was the call and the innovations made in the recent past that have allowed us the leave Earth and enter space to go where no man has gone before. The early years of our race to space were full of mishaps and failures but when we got it right we got it right. We put a man in space, a man on the moon, limits to our abilities seemed to no longer exist. The limitations of man had disappeared we could now come and go as we please. The journey to space was not easy but it was something that had to be done. Space flights in the early years were exciting and new but in the more recent days we began to see space travel as not begin a big deal and the excitement ceased. Two years ago the space shuttle exploded and Americans and the world began to cry out and wanted to know what went wrong. The world shutdown for full focus on the events, the world stood still once again because of an event in space. It was a disaster that put our focus back on the space missions, we cared again, we knew we had to return to space. NASA grounded the shuttles for nearly two years to examine what went wrong and try to fix it, and today we return to space. We will no longer we stuck on the rock, we will no longer have the limitations of this planet stopping us, we will go back to where few men have gone before, we will be back in space! Good Luck and God Speed.

Well this is my new WeeklyRoundUp, I thought I would wait until Friday morning to type it up and just write about what I could remember about the week but it seems I am having trouble remembering things to put in. So next week I will write them as they go and then put it all together on Friday. The WeeklyRoundUp will be a way for me to comment on the fly so you can see exactly what I'm thinking, in fact I will not even go back and proofread the text so it is as genuine as possible.

This week was for the most part a good week. I celebrated Independence Day with some friends, and was told I got somewhat gitty although I don’t remember much of it. And that I don’t remember much of it was odd since all I had was Cheerwine* and snack food, but anyway. I saw the new Tom Cruise movie “War of the Worlds”, say that ten times fast, and I thought it was a great movie although the ending leaves you with questions of how and why.

Then on Thursday I woke up to a surprise. Some man woke me up that went by the name of Tiger, said the same way as the Pooh character’s name, he wanted to know about a storm door quote that he had left. He had woken me up from a deep sleep and I was not happy right then, I couldn’t go back to sleep for a while so I turned the TV on and saw what had happened in London. I was still half a sleep so the news didn’t really hit me at that point, I knew what happened and understood it but it didn’t affect me for a while. I soon turned back over and went to sleep, when I woke up this time it hit me what had happened. Terrorist had struck in the heart of London! Many had been killed, hundreds injured, and more deaths were coming. My heart and prayers go out to the people of London and the UK, this is further evidence we need to hunt down and destroy those who strike with these cowardly acts of terror against the innocents.

I was watching a rerun of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart this morning and he had an interview with Howard Dean. I noticed something when Dean was asked what the plan was that the Democrats had that was better than the GOP’s he couldn’t answer the question. He changed the subject a little, enough you couldn’t notice, but he never actually answered the question of what the plan was. So does this mean the Democrats have no plan, just don’t know what it is, or don’t know how to say it?

I thought since I was drinking Cheerwine and its not available in most areas I would tell you what it is. It is a soft drink with as they say, “ a unique cherry taste and rich burgundy color”. L.D. Peeler first created Cheerwine in Salisbury, NC in 1917. It is one of the best drinks I have ever tasted and you haven’t lived if you’ve never had a Cheerwine. For more information on Cheerwine check out Cheerwine.com, and if you want to try some Cheerwine you can order it online here.

Today we celebrate the birth of the United States of America, a nation for the people and by the people. I felt it was only fitting to post the document that started it all. God Bless America!

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. --And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Well its been a while since I posted on my blog. Lots of things have been going on that have kept me from having the time to post. It seems that I have missed out on a lot; from the new face of the Supreme Court to the missing girl in Aruba to Microsoft's plans to include RSS in Longhorn. The past few days I spent working on a new design for the blog that I hope works better than the old one. I grew tired of that old one and felt it looked to messy so I spent hours staring at code to get this one just right. Hopefully you will enjoy the new look of the blog and I hope this new design and layout allows me to be more flexible in the content. I think I may take a new direction with my blog post by doing something like a week-in-review maybe on Fridays where I will briefly discuss the weeks events. Who knows where things will go. It seems like when I switched to Blogger I lost interest in daily posts so maybe now I will get back to the roots and start blogging again.